Kobach lauds Salina Tech during visit

Richard Fairchild (left), auto collision repair instructor at Salina Area Technical College, talks with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach during a tour of the school Tuesday morning. [TOM DORSEY / SALINA JOURNAL]▲

"Salina Tech is a great school and has just the right programs that the job market demands," Kansas Republican gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach said Tuesday morning following a tour of the Salina Area Technical College campus.

Kobach, who visited with various department instructors and students asking questions about course offerings and available financial assistance, applauded the technical institution for assuring graduates of post-graduation success.

"Their (job) placement rate is really impressive with many of these programs seeing 95 percent or even higher placement for their students and that's what students want," he said.

Kobach said his intentions for the visit were to see "first-hand" how Salina Tech "provides a critical gap training."

He singled out Salina Tech's diversified program offering — "everything from dental assistance to diesel mechanics." — and their ability to stay "versatile" and "find the programs that need to exist here (Salina) in order to serve the employers that need to find skilled employees."

"You have people coming out of high school who don't have these skills and you have employers who need people with certain skills and Salina Tech fills that gap perfectly," he said.

State funding

In a subsequent interview following the campus tour, Kobach reinforced his belief that Kansas K-12 public schools should spend 75 percent of its funding on classroom instruction.

"Right now we're only spending 53 cents of the dollar on average in Kansas in the classroom and that's just far short of what it should be," he said.

Kobach said "out-of-the-class spending" is "not just buildings, it's administrators."

"In the last 25 years the number of teachers has increased 17 percent in Kansas, but the number of administrators and management personnel has increased 40 percent," he said. "I think a lot of Kansans would find that interesting and maybe a little bit troubling because they're thinking that they're tax dollars for schools are going to the classroom when in fact, in many areas in the state, the administrative overhead is way too significant."